Status Updates From Pocket Neighborhoods: Creat...

We met the next-door neighbor to this pea-patch. She confirmed our sense of the connection among neighbors, and suggested the possibility of taking down the fence that divided the two front yards and building a common sound-buffering wall and gate to the busy street.

The problem with suburbia is that there is no culture of sharing. Every household owns the same yard tools used only now and then.

Several times during the summer they plan events in the cul-de-sac, taking over the street with lawn chairs, shade tents, and moveable firepits. Unplanned gatherings and block parties are just as likely to happen spontaneously when neighbors venture out to visit, sometimes with chairs and a dinner dish, or a glass of wine in hand.

Cul-de-sacs are like pocket neighborhoods, in that groups of homes surround a central shared space with minimal traffic. They fall short, however, in that they are planned primarily for cars and service access, not for people and socializing. Most houses have multiple garage doors facing the street with no active interior rooms looking out. The message is: "Cars live here, not people."

Cul-de-sacs are typically planned primarily for cars, and offer limited opportunities for socializing among neighbors. Some communities are taking the initiative to use the street for social gatherings.

The neighborhood oranization convinced the city to replace the street with a pedestrian commons, complete with shade trees, ;awn, and a children's playground where the intersection used to be. The homes are accessed by a car from rear alleyways.

Why is it that so few towns and cities of the American West have a village green, town commons, plazas, or neighborhood parks? The culprit is the Land Ordinance of 1785.

Clearly the teahouse catalyzed the community's need for a commons.

When you walk around these intersections, you get it. People are out talking to each other. Cars move slowly. There's a sense that you are in a place, rather than just passing through one.

Design is an essential tool of democracy. The notion is a core principle of Mark Lakeman's view of a healthy society. Raised by ardent modernists who believed that all problems have creative solutions, his parents instilled in him his duty as a citizen to take part in shaping the world.

Neighbors surrounding a street intersection in Portland, Oregon, took it upon themselves to paint a mandala on the pavement as a way to slow traffic. This "intersection repair" sparked a resurgence of community building projects throughout the city. Intersections-like old village plazas and piazzas-are where people come together.

We recognized that our houses were landlocked by busy streets. All of it is public space, yet no one can use it!

In villages of the past crossroads functioned as public plazas where people came together for trade and socializing. It is only in modern times that intersections have become the province of cars and trucks, with people pushed to the periphery. It was this kind of thought that sparked the first "intersection repair".